OPINION MISSISSIPPI’S BEST COMMUNITY DAILY NEWSPAPER

Friday January 19, 2024

Critical Places: Sites of American Slave Rebellion

Back in the 1980s, a fascinating exhibit in the Wright Center Art Gallery at Delta State University forever changed the way I look at and think about the world of Mississippi that lies around us. "Panorama of the American Land-scape" is series of fourteen giant canvases that were originally created by Mississippi artist William Dunlap for a 1985 installation in the rotunda of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Wash-ington, DC. The series now lives at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson. The complex images are mesmeriz-ing, with layer upon layer of meaning revealed upon the rural imagery. Spe-cifically, if one looks very closely, one can see indications of Civil War troop movements on the rolling hills. So much of the time, we walk on - or drive past-sites of great historical sig-nificance. Sometimes they have been identified with historical markers, but often they have not. History is past. It does not change. But our knowledge of, and our understanding of, history is constantly changing - depending on what knowledge our culture has preserved and There can be a world of factual information about our surroundings that lies outside of what we have already been taught. Have you ever seen an impromptu memorial on a roadside and wondered what tragic loss of life took place at that site? Sites of human death - and cemeteries where people are interred - are seen as particularly sacred to us. That leads us to photographer Mi- kael Levin's "Critical Places: Sites of American Slave Rebellion" exhibit. Since 2019 Levin has been traveling across the United States, tak- TOP OF THE MORNING Kathleen Bond ing photographs of sites of slave rebellions that date as far back as the late 1700s. These images may be evocative in their quiet stillness, or they may be bustling with the everyday noise of modern life. Levin stands as witness that something of import once happened in these places, and his work draws us in to want to learn more. Natchez, Mississippi is a nationally significant town in the history of this country. Its antebellum architectural heritage is second to none. The history of the Natchez District is also heavily tarnished by the violence required to impose the system of American chattel slavery upon people of African descent. An almost complete loss of personal liberty. Children and spouses sold away from families. Men overworked, abused, and tortured. Women raped and pros-tituted. Rumors of uprisings or rebellions by enslaved people were widely shared and the fear of these rebellions among slave-owning families was deep and pervasive. These fears of murder and rape and destruction among the white population grew stronger after many Natchez men left in early 1861 to join various Confederate regiments - leaving a local vigilante force in place to monitor such matters. Were it not for the accidental discovery of a cache of papers in the Louisiana State University archives by historian Winthrop Jordan, we might never have known that something happened down on the Second Creek plantations in 1861. Rumors spread of a planned upris-ing. Investigations and torture to elicit confessions followed. Lemuel Conner recorded the testimony. The extra-judi-cial hanging of as many as 40 enslaved people in and around Cherry Grove Plantation followed. To learn more about the details, read Winthrop Jordan's "Tumult and Silence at Second Creek: An Inquiry into a Civil War Slave Conspiracy." To see Levin's exhibit of contemporary photos, visit the South Slave Cabin at Melrose between January 25 and April 1, 2024. The site is open free of charge daily between 8:30 am and 5:00 pm. The artist will be present to speak with visitors on January 25 between Mikael Levin will speak at the Historic Natchez Foundation, 108 S. Commerce St., at 6:30 pm on Thursday, January 24th. The Alluvial Collective, which sponsored the exhibit with funding from the Mississippi Humanities Council, will host a public dialogue session about the exhibit at the NAPAC museum (301 Main Street) at 2:00 pm on Saturday, January 27th. The public is encouraged to participate. KATHLEEN BOND is Superintendent of Natchez National Historical Park.